Meetings
The meeting that decides nothing
Why your weekly leadership meeting is a status report in disguise, and the three-part agenda that fixes it.
· 6 min read · · Decided no. 112
Count the decisions. That is the whole test. Take your last four leadership meetings and write down every decision that was made in them: a named person, a thing they will do, a date. Most teams I work with find two or three. In twelve hours of meetings.
The rest of the time is updates. Updates feel like work because everyone is talking about work. But an update is something you could have read on Friday, and reading is about four times faster than listening.
A three-part agenda
Decisions first, each with an owner and a deadline. Then escalations: things that are stuck and need the room. Then you stop. Updates go in writing, before the meeting, and anyone who has not read them is welcome to read them during the first five minutes.
What happens next
The meeting gets shorter, then quieter, then much better. The first month is uncomfortable, because people are used to being seen in the meeting. That is the point.